Donations to a Jewish Philanthropy Ebb

By KAREN W. ARENSON

Published: December 27, 1995

With legions of volunteer fund-raisers and donations regularly topping $800 million a year, the United Jewish Appeal-Federation fund-raising drive has long been the bedrock of Jewish philanthropy, the money machine with which American Jews financed Israel's survival and the fight against anti-Semitism.

Now that bedrock is eroding, its foundations weakened by its donors' lessening interest in a Jewish state that is increasingly more secure and by their own secure standing in the United States.

Last year, the U.J.A. slipped to fourth place on the Chronicle of Philanthropy's list of top charities, behind the Salvation Army, the American Red Cross and Second Harvest, a national network of food banks. In 1990, the group was first. Although fund-raisers were encouraged earlier this month by an increase in giving spurred by the rising stock market, few were willing to pronounce a turnaround in the group's fortunes. And Jewish leaders are scrambling to stem the decline.

"The history of Jewish philanthropy is that the Jews put up a lot of money when they are motivated to do so by a sense of urgency about the mission they are financing, like anti-Semitism, Hitler or Israel," said Gershon Kekst, an active donor to Jewish causes who runs a public relations firm in New York. "Now there is no impetus to put up the money, and that is the threat to U.J.A.-Federation."

There is no sign that the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel has affected giving.

Money for the U.J.A. is raised by volunteers in local groups across the United States. Donors make one contribution that is divided between the U.J.A. and local charities. The U.J.A. directs its share, now about 42 percent, to Israel, Russia, Bosnia and 57 other nations. Leaders of each local group allocate their share to hospitals, nursing homes, Jewish community centers and other local charities.

Last year, volunteers in the combined fund-raising drive raised only $752 million, down from $826 million collected in 1993 and well below the record $1.2 billion that poured in during 1990, the first year of Operation Exodus, a special campaign to resettle Soviet Jews in Israel.

The decline in the U.J.A.'s fortunes has been aggravated by its inability to get young donors as involved as their parents and grandparents were. U.J.A.-Federation of New York, one of the local groups, says that baby boomers, people ages 35 to 49, are underrepresented in its giving base, which tends to be older, affluent, highly educated and more often male than female.

At the same time, the growing assimilation of Jews into American society has weakened their sense of community and feelings of obligation, altering the giving patterns of older and younger Jews alike.

"The current generation long stopped giving Jewishly, and much of it stopped thinking Jewishly, and that is part of the crisis," said Rabbi Irving (Yitz) Greenberg, president of The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership and Jewish Life Network, both in New York.

U.J.A. donors are turning, instead, to institutions like Harvard University and the Metropolitan Opera, many of which once spurned Jews on their boards.

In addition, Jews once submitted more willingly to peer pressure to give to the U.J.A., eager to solidify their positions professionally or in their communities, while doing good. Now, they are less willing.

"A key source of leverage was not wanting to look bad with your peers," said Jack Wertheimer, a professor of American Jewish history at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. "That is why card calling -- where people had to stand up at a lunch or dinner and publicly state what they were giving -- was so effective. But it cut both ways. It was a key to the enormous success of U.J.A., but it also led to a lot of resentment and bitterness."

Indeed, many Jews considered their contributions a kind of tax, referring to the group as the Jewish I.R.S.

"Twenty years ago, when I was soliciting, I had no hesitation in saying, 'This is the tax you owe,' " said a New York lawyer who spoke on the condition that he not be named. "Today I wouldn't dream of telling someone he had to pay his tax."

Donors who continue to support Jewish or Israel-oriented philanthropies are subscribing to the proliferating number of charitable organizations that are smaller and less bureaucratic than the venerable behemoth that is the U.J.A. With less of an entrenched hierarchy of contributors, these groups -- the American Friends of the Hebrew University, for example, or the Weizmann Institute of Science -- offer more opportunities for supporters to go beyond giving and involve themselves in their operations or development. They also offer donors narrower, more specific uses for their philanthropy.

"As people have become more familiar with Israel, they can give gifts that give them a closer relationship with institutions there," said Kenneth Bialkin, a New York lawyer who is on the boards of both the Hebrew University and the Jerusalem Foundation. "I still give a relatively substantial gift to U.J.A., but it is a fraction of my Jewish-oriented giving; it used to be much larger."

The diversification by donors like Mr. Bialkin is part of why the U.J.A. is losing ground. U.J.A. money, which once accounted for the bulk of American philanthropic dollars flowing to Israel, is now considerably less. "The estimate is that there is at least as much money -- if not more -- now going to Israel from outside U.J.A. as from U.J.A.," said Professor Wert heimer of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

Besides the competition from other fund-raisers, the U.J.A. is also competing with its own donors. A growing number of big Jewish philanthropists, including Charles R. Bronfman, co-chairman of the Seagram Company, and Leslie Wexner, chairman of the retailing company the Limited Inc., are establishing their own private foundations.

Jewish leaders are trying various strategies to try to rebuild the giving.

For example, the U.J.A.-Federation of New York, which has the largest concentration of American Jews to tap and raises the most money nationally, has a new strategic plan to broaden its membership and develop young leaders. The federation has begun an extensive advertising campaign to show donors that their money is not going to a big, faceless bureaucracy but to real, needy people, in such diverse locales as Bosnia and Brooklyn.

The federation is also trying to create a new image, as an organization that listens harder and cajoles rather than pressures people into giving. The federation is offering donors more flexibility in directing bequests and other large contributions, even though this runs counter to the centuries-old prescription in Jewish culture that calls for centralized fund raising allocated on the basis of need.

The group has established a Jewish Continuity Commission to support and develop programs that enhance Jewish education and identity. It is sponsoring a grass-roots effort on Long Island, known as Connections, that tries to bring together Jews of all levels of observance, mostly in their 30's and 40's, in small groups at people's homes to explore the role of Judaism in their lives.

"It's a question of the next generation," said Roger Fisher, a founder of Connections and its current chairman. "The problem in general is that we have become secularized. Eating gefilte fish will not assure the continuity of the Jewish people. There has to be religious observance. If this generation does not get involved, 10 or 15 years from now there won't be any 60- or 70-year-olds sitting in temple."

And the federation is working to establish a free-standing entity that will develop a new approach for outreach and fund raising more in tune with younger Jews.

"It is an answer to the criticism that we are too committed to the status quo," said Stephen D. Solender, the federation's executive vice president, "a way to try to maintain consensus and still be creative."

Nationally, Jewish leaders are trying to merge the U.J.A. with the Council of Jewish Federations, the umbrella organization that links the local federations of Jewish philanthropy. A primary goal, members of the merger study group say, is to make the U.J.A. more appealing to American donors by shifting more control from the U.J.A., which is focused on the needs of Israel and other nations overseas, to American fund-raisers, many of whom want more emphasis placed on Jewish identity and domestic charitable needs in a period of reduced government spending.

Some Israelis and some American donors say they will approve the merger only if the money allocated for use in Israel is maintained at its current level. But many of the local federations, which must approve the merger, are balking at guaranteeing a fixed level of donations to Israel, because it means ceding their right to allocate the money they raise.

Joel D. Tauber, the president of the U.J.A. and co-chairman of the national group developing a merger plan, acknowledges that both sides are likely to be unhappy in the initial stages of a merger, should it occur. But, if it results in increased fund raising, the criticisms should cease.

"It is imperative that we raise more money," Mr. Tauber said. "If we do, it will not be a problem. If we don't, we will be in deep trouble. But we are not going to move ahead by slicing the same pie in different ways."

Graph: "BY THE NUMBERS: A Shrinking Pot" shows the decline in moneyraised by and the percentage given to the United Jewish Appeal, 1985 to 1994. (Source: United Jewish Appeal, Inc.)